What’s your IMAGE?

Writers, carefully crafting your image can help with marketing. You want strangers to remember something about you.

It’s time for another brainstorm.

What is there about where you live that others might find appealing? In my case, St. Louis is a former frontier town, gateway to the West, a 250-year-old city with a rich past. Beer barons, baseball, fighter aircraft. Is there a way to appropriate any of that sort of thing in a persona you might seek to project? Wear a baseball hat, for example? A cowboy hat? Have a photo taken in front of the local landmark, in my case the Gateway Arch?

How about your personal preferences? A favorite color? Author Kim Vogel Sawyer has branded herself as the woman who always wears purple. Others in the book business sometimes wear a particular style of hat.

How to relate the brand to what you write? Since Sawyer writes about prairie life in the late 1800s, she has had photo shoots of herself with Conestoga wagons and other artifacts. You might have a steampunk outfit that you’re fond of. How about some photos of yourself in that, displayed occasionally on your Facebook and blog?

ASK US any question about writing, marketing, and publishing, for our Tuesday blog feature, The Answer Place. We'll get answers from others we know in the industry, too. Tell us your question on the Contact Page.

NEWSLETTER SIGNUP. Your choice: Get the first three chapters of #1 Amazon best seller The Day She Died by Bill Garrison, or Weasel Words, tips for writers. Stay informed on our promos and posts for writers and readers. We will never share your email info with anyone. Unsubscribe any time.